As we approach the General Election, the countdown to 7 May is dominating the political news agenda, in stark contrast to the rather quiet local elections of last year. However, 2014 saw a huge shift at the Local Government Association (LGA), with the balance of power of the organisation shifting to Labour, and David Sparks taking over as chairman.

While Cllr Sparks prepared to lead the LGA at a cross-party level, Oldham leader Jim McMahon was campaigning to become leader of the Labour Group – with an agenda for change at the association. Even before he got the job, he had set the cat among the pigeons in Smith Square, with plans for an independent review of the association.

‘Any good organisation has to hold a mirror to itself and the peer review did that. It was about just testing whether it was fit for purpose,’ he says. ‘The real challenge is what we do with it.’

With the coming election, and its unpredictable outcome, he says it is imperative that the LGA is ‘agile and nimble’ or it could run into problems.

While the review – which was rebranded as a ‘peer review’ – was published earlier this month, the LGA has already started to implement some changes it highlighted, but Cllr McMahon has already moved on.

‘Although the peer review was important, my priority hasn’t been inside the LGA at all, it has been being the voice of Labour local government,’ Cllr McMahon sits on the Labour National Executive Committee and attends shadow cabinet meetings on behalf of local government and has been involved in the manifesto process for the party.

Unsurprisingly, he is utterly supportive of Labour and the manifesto. More surprisingly, he says he is confident there will be a Labour majority at the election.

‘I do believe the Labour manifesto is localist in spirit. And I do believe we have got some very significant people who support the idea of devolution and who recognise that to deliver a progressive country, we can only do that by empowering people. We can’t do that by command and control,’ he says.

He also says of Labour leader Ed Miliband: ‘He used the term winning power to give it away. It is a world away from the early part of the last Labour government, which was highly centralist. But then local government has changed too.

‘We want ministers of all colours to see local government as delivering change, not as a blocker to it,’ says Cllr McMahon. ‘We have been trying hard to make sure devolution is understood, that it isn’t confused – deliberately or not – with public sector reform.’

While there are elements of decentralisation that could make things more efficient, he is wary of the issues becoming blurred. ‘Devolution is not an answer to the cuts,’ he warns. ‘You have still got to have fair funding.’

‘What our centralising friends will say is what do you do when a council fails? You can laugh it off and say “you show me a council that’s failed and I’ll show you a minister that’s failed” but the truth is that we have got to deal with those questions if we are going to have any credibility.’

‘Any good organisation has to hold a mirror to itself and the peer review did that. It was about just testing whether it was fit for purpose. The real challenge is what we do with it’

It is one of the huge dilemmas faced by the LGA. How does it tackle councils outside membership? How does it challenge local authorities which can just walk away? Yet, as he points out, the LGA ‘does get a significant chunk of money for improvement’ so it has to make sure it helps the sector improve.

‘There will always be a need for more robust action at some point. The challenge, I think, for local government is, are we willing to do that ourselves or are we happy for someone to do that for us. I think the truth is the jury is still out. There are very different views on who should do that.’

His own view is that there needs to be a clear framework for improvement and for intervention, so everyone knows where they stand. So far, intervention has been piecemeal – and ultimately the Government will not be able to step in if too many places fall down at the same time.

Some of the answers will lie in the consultation on sector-led improvement, which was sparked by the peer review. The results of the consultation are imminent. It is not the only dilemma the LGA faces. It is a cross-party national organisation trying to represent different types of authority, in different places, of different colours and with different needs.

‘It is interesting that we support localism, and it’s about authorities making decisions that are right for them, but we are trying to create national solutions. It’s a bit counter intuitive really,’ Cllr McMahon explains.

The peer review may have held a mirror up, but the Labour group leader suggests the LGA knows it has to keep modernising as the agenda for local government changes.

‘There might be differences of opinion on what we modernise to, but that’s the next step.’